Talk:Comparison of BitTorrent clients/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Selected downloads

As we've all(?) seen, some torrent downloads contain multiple files. As an example, if you grab a torrent containing an entire season of a particular episode, it will usually have multiple files, one (or more) for each episode in the season. BitComet and TurboTorrent allow you to select individual files within the torrent, and set priority on them or disable their download. The term "selected downloads" seems to be the term to search for on Google, on this count. This would be really handy for someone who only wants to see a couple episodes out of a season, when individual torrents for the individual episodes don't appear to be available. If we add this to the list of columns (a simple yes or no would do), it should increase awareness of this feature and, hopefully, push developers to include it in more client programs.

He's got a point. Speaking of which, does BitTorrent (mainline) have this feature? Sweetfreek 08:28, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

the main table lists rtorrent as having this feature, but I don't see any sign of it in the latest version of the software itself ---- Sitaram 17:31 IST 3 August 2007

Software using BT

The GunZ international version also uses a patch distribution method similar to bittorrent, could someone research this? (moved from article) There seems to be a .torrent file that is downloaded to the GunZ directory that is openable in normal clients.

µTorrent search function

According to the 2nd table µTorrent has a torrent search function, which is wrong afaik.. it simply uses a internet explorer webbrowser API to access some tracker sites, so it should be relabled to "(yellow) Built-in webbrowser". This edit was already in place but was reverted. --89.49.239.197 15:54, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure it counts as adware, since the ads are neither integrated into or bundled with the client. They're in an external website. Agree/disagree? 70.45.50.121 09:46, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm the one who changed the malware field and added the footnote. I'm happy as long as the footnote stays. I think the question of whether or not it qualifies as adware belongs primarily in the uTorrent article, and any change there should be mirrored here. 59.167.22.209 10:59, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Removed footnote, 'cause the ads have been switched off.70.45.50.121 21:02, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Hydranode is not present

I have not seen Hydranode client in the table. Is this on purpose? If not, can somebody add it?. Thanks. --Aimak 09:21, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Can somebody add it? Yes, anyone can add it. You can add it. Jump in! Gronky 18:42, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

BitTorrent Plus!

I just wanted to point out a BitTorrent client that isn't on this list -- BitTorrent Plus!. It is based on BitTornado, and it looks sexy. However, beauty may only be skin deep. I don't have any time right now to analyze the client, but perhaps someone else could? -- Masamunecyrus^(talk)_(contribs) 04:54, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

commnt of mine: page is down: this is history! Mabdul (talk) 16:51, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

GetRight

Since version 6.0 GetRight offers the possibily to download torrent files. So maybe someone might be willing to add GetRight to the list. - Jack's Revenge 07:47, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Last Update

How about a "last update" column, to see which of those client are still recieving updates, and which projects are abandoned?

Yeah I think that's pretty important. # Ido50 (talk to me), at 23:18, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Number of Users

Anyone think the approximate number of users could be a part of the table, or should it go with the client? Or should it not be put in at all? Darthnader37 03:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

How do you plan to calculate the approximate number of users? 80.202.192.141 23:36, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Without installation

I think it would be a good idea to add whether a client have a stand-alone version. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.11.182.1 (talk) 10:40, 27 April 2007 (UTC).

It`s also called portable version. Good idea, please add it to the list.

Added a note for the Halite client. 87.11.181.48 02:03, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

There should be a column for freeware and shareware too.

There should be a column for Freeware and shareware too.
DJAikou (talk) 04:04, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

shareware????????? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.31.211.172 (talk) 18:20, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

why is bit torrent client column there twice?

???????

If it doesn't fit, separate them into two "charts" or something.....i think that's what they did in the web browser comparison charts. Edit: I noticed supports is separated into two places and stuff, why are they separated? why not have them together? Noian (talk) 00:47, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I splitted the table. It's ok if you declare me insane now, because I did it by hand! Even though I've worked a lot with markup code, that did took me a lot of time :p. And I didn't even checked in the first place if there are any tools available to edit wikitables more easily. Or to convert HTML tables to wikitables. Now that I searched for it however, those tools don't seem to exist. :-( Face 22:40, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Looks better now, At least it fits on the screen, must have been time consuming to split it though....Noian (talk) 01:40, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

It's rather broken at the moment. Is it absolutely necessary to have it set up this way? Could it at least be set to a different color scheme so as to not induce epileptic fits if someone scrolls down through it quickly? --Human.v2.0 (talk) 02:03, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

......? do you want it to be split more obviously? or reverted? also, removed the extra row on the bottom, although if you think it should be there, feel free to revert it. Noian (talk) 02:10, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

When I had looked at it jut before then, the second table was broken due to something. It's not now. My other comments are directed at the colors to start with. Is it necessary to have it in bright neon pink and green? It seriously does hurt my eyes to look at, which is a bad sign for a wiki page. Also the "comments" section seems to be a largely unnecessary section with also breaks up the regularity of the table. Is it necessary to insert comments of "buggy" for clients that don't even have their own wiki, especially when the inclusion makes an allready bad table worse? Just constructive commentary. --Human.v2.0 (talk) 02:18, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't the one who made it so I can't really say for the comments section (which has some useful information and some useless) As for the colors, that can be changed easily, although last I checked, most wiki comparison pages use those colors so.....(or something close to) Noian (talk) 01:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I made some shortings: i deleted the broken ip v6 notes and marked them in the ipv6 column as buggy. maybe we should split up the table again. the first should only show on which os is supported, foss/freeware/shareware/licence/costs AND that there st adware/malware present, then the second and third table is like now! Mabdul (talk) 19:36, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

ok, done. look and feel good or edit them! ^^ Mabdul (talk) 00:45, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Unlimited torrents in the official BitTorrent client?

It's been a few years since I've used the official client, but last time I used it, each instance of the program could only run a single torrent, and for multiple torrents you had to start multiple instances of the program. If that's still the case, should it really be listed as unlimited torrent capacity? Sure, you can start as many instances of the program as you want (if you have enough memory), but that's not really the same as the more full-featured clients that let you use multiple torrents in a single window and selectively ration your bandwidth between them. If that's still how it is, maybe it should be listed as "1 per program instance"? Of course, if they've changed the client in the past few years, then just tell me I'm out of date. 4.226.111.130 23:28, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I hadn't used the Mainline client in a couple years either, but I just downloaded it, and the interface is completely different. It's no longer one torrent per process; it looks almost like a real, usable client now. --Nasarius 03:55, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Multiple torrents were always possible in the console version using btlaunchmany/btlaunchmanycurses at least as far back as 2.0; I did so frequently. —pfahlstrom 02:21, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

On the same topic, last time I checked, BitTornado and Gnome BitTorrent, both modelled after the old-style mainline BitTorrent, used the one download per instance model. Unless they have both changed recently I think the "max active" value is wrong for each of these. Pimlottc 04:31, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Extending selective downloads column

I suggest all the clients which support selective downloading but aren't smart enough to not create files unecessarily on the filesystem have their "selective download" support changed from green to yellow. There are really four levels of support in this category: no support, supports but creates all files, supports but creates some unwanted files (when pieces straddle file borders for the purpose of hashing), supports and (uses some sort of temporarily file OR removes unwanted files when stopping/removing/closing the torrent). Anyone who is interested in the selective downloads column should also be interested in this further information. --4.253.68.195 06:33, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Where is Ares Galaxy?

Ares galaxy supports bittorrent since v1.9.5

Great. Add it. VanishingUser 23:43, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

What about Ants ?

May be there is some mention of Ants, somewhere else, but I saw no mention of it on that page... I know, it is still under developement, and its network is still small, but it is working, and considering the complete novelty of its concepts (and the total security of it : the concepter having opened a contest for hackers to break through its system!) I really believe that it merits some mention here... There was some years ago a first trial to use those principles (Kast: <http://konspire.sourceforge.net/howItWorks.shtml>), but, for some reasons, and inspite a very promising start, it never continued. So, I was absolutely pleased to see, recently that Ants was now working on those same principles (the ants quest for Pheromones)... (it is mentionned in Wikipedia France <http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANts_P2P> but there is a full explanation of it's working principles here <http://antsp2p.sourceforge.net/antsp2phelp/Default.htm>. Dsoslglece

You can add it if you really want and if its related to BitTorrent Clients....Noian (talk) 18:43, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

BitTorrent_index_comparison

• How can List_of_BitTorrent_RSS_feeds and Comparison_of_BitTorrent_software be kept and BitTorrent_index_comparison be deleted?

"The result was delete." for Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/BitTorrent_index_comparison but with no rational for this decision. BitTorrent indexes account for 1/3 of all Internet traffic.! Why is Wikipedia not covering it? People calmed it was not sourced but all material is attributable to the websites them selves. I believe Wikipedia would be a better encyclopedia with the article restored.

BitTorrent indexes account for 1/3 of all Internet traffic. The following is a BitTorrent index comparison:

Features

	legal only	is a tracker	directory	sortable	one click download	comments	tracker amalgamation	public	private	RSS	specialization
AnimeSuki	Unlicensed only	No	Yes	Only new torrents	No	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	unlicensed anime
BigTorrent	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	anime
BoxTorrents	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	complete anime sets
BiteNova	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
Bitmetv	?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	No	Yes	?	TV
BitTorrent	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No	No
BTMon	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
BTJunkie	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
BushTorrents	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
DC Hubs	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	No	No
Demonoid	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Dinastar-elec	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	Linux
Fenopy	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
FlixFlux	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Film
fulldls	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
isoHunt	No	Yes	No	Not new torrents	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
MegaNova	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
Mininova	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
MyBittorrent	No	No	Yes	Not working	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
NewTorrents	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
Oink	?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	No	Yes	?	Audio
ScrapeTorrent	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	No
Snarf-it	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
ThePirateBay	No	Yes	Yes	Not the top 100	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
TorrentBox	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No
Torrent-Finder	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	other sites
TorrentLeech	?	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	?	No	Yes	Yes	?
TorrentPortal	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
TorrentReactor	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
TorrentSpy	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
TorrentValley	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
Torrentz	No	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No

See also

• List of torrent sites
  • BitTorrent
  • Comparison of BitTorrent software
  • Comparison of file sharing applications
  • Super-seeding
  • BitTorrent tracker
  • Magnet link
• List of torrent sites
  • Top 100 Torrent Site List
  • thebeehive
  • torrent sites
• Torrent sites in the news
  • Top BT sites in 2004
  • cnn, BT is 20% of Internet activity with 45 million users
  • cbc, piratebay et al vs MPAA
• List of torrent sites blog
  • Torrent Sites by category, sorted by # of active torrents.
  • Top 10 Torrent Site List
  • web-of-knowledge
  • Legal only sites

It was deleted because it's unmaintainable and unverifiable. -Halo 12:50, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion only to the same degree as Comparison_of_BitTorrent_software. So I was asking for a specific comparison, but thank you for your input.--72.139.115.137 21:58, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

On a related note, there is no Comparison of BitTorrent tracker software. That is, the tracker software itself not whatever sites are using it. -- SEWilco (talk) 17:43, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Chart Key

I do not know exactly what "S" means, and I do not see a key. I am guessing it means "some". Anyone think a key or explanation should be added? Laptopdude 22:45, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Interface

CLI is not as helpful as it could be. I'd like to see "curses" added for clients that support it. rtorrent, bittorrent, bittornado all have at least some kind of curses support. rtorrent is really what I'd have in mind though. An interface where you can add and control torrents like other GUI interfaces, not just a glorified full screen progress bar.

rTorrent is also compatible to run on the Apple TV !! Since the Apple TV runs 24 hours a day, thre is no need to run your computer, when you can be more green and run an appliance that only uses 17 watts per hour!

TPH —Preceding unsigned comment added by TinpanHarry (talk • contribs) 23:52, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Templates now sortable

I made the templates sortable. In order to do this, I had to remove the repetition of the column headers within the template, and I had to put all subheaders on the main level. Users can increase their screen resolution to solve the issue of forgetting which column is which. The subheader issue I think is not important. Whistling42 (talk) 20:51, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I made additional edits free space for new features for the tables (ie language support{how many}, or First public release, date, Latest stable, Date of latest, Cost (USD), Software license) Mabdul (talk) 00:45, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Tables

How about adding a big table that describes better the "last updated", etc.? I think of somethink like in this arctile: Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients Mabdul (talk) 16:51, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Vendor ID's (Two-Letter Codes) should be inserted as a column for proper identification. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.172.79.98 (talk) 18:05, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Title of article

I'm not sure if I like the name of this article. It seems to be a table of BitTorrent clients and their features, not an explanation of what a BitTorrent client is. The title is misleading. Anyone think that it should be moved to something like List of BitTorrent clients and features, or something more grammatically correct? At very least, move it to BitTorrent clients. _{TIM KLOSKE|TALK} 21:51, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, but its really only a aesthetic difference......Noian (talk) 18:46, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merging_articles#How_to_rename_a_page for how to move it if you want. Noian (talk) 19:41, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Open Source

Hi. I'm the one who added the open source section. I think it is useful to know in regards to privacy. If it is open source "you", or someone who knows programming, can be certain the software does not spy on you etc. I am not good with Wikipedia, I couldn't figure out how to set yes or no to whether it is open source or not. But this I know: Deluge/Azureus is open source. µTorrent isn't. Can someone please edit that in? -81.191.11.71 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.191.11.71 (talk) 16:41, 8 June 2008 (UTC) ~ ehm, there is already< a coulum open-source: called FOSS (look at this article and read carfully!) mabdul 0=* 22:03, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I didn't know that. I didn't know that FOSS meant what it meant. Anyway, I think we should keep open source instead of FOSS as open source is generally more explaining, and more commonly known (what it means). Any other opinions? 81.191.11.71 (talk) 13:15, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I dumped the last column. It had many errors BTW. I someone has more time to spare I'd suggest moving the Open Source column just before the Malware column. Llewelyn MT (talk) 15:29, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Last Column

In the general table... there's no title for the last column... what gives? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.104.115.177 (talk) 21:18, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Work on all information related to clients.

Either that or split the article. All there is atm is a comparison table with a poor description of clients. There should be a longer description at least, maybe a distribution of the majorclients used, common features, etc. The infobox relates clients to this page, as well as table of clients. I propose to either add information on both in (not one), or split the article, like they do with internet browsers. Noian (talk) 01:27, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Why does torrentrelay deserve its own external link?

I find it odd that the same ip keeps making these changes to this particular "service" (that's not even a client). None of the other listings have external links on them and it's quite possible that this specific one isn't even worthy of being on this list. I changed it to match the current formatting on the list and was reverted. I'm bringing here to discuss any possible issues.Momo Hemo (talk) 05:11, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

BitRocket

What about bitrocket?-217.157.174.130 (talk) 22:38, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Page Revamp

The whole page needs to be revamped, since it looks like someone used a blender on it.

Chris122990 (talk) 17:09, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll help if I can.

• The page should just be about the client and what it does.
• The tables should be moved to Comparison of BitTorrent Clients
• The 'issues' section could be nuked or somehow put into plain English. ^{XF Law} _{talk at me} 10:15, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

ok, the start is made now. ow i need help. this topic was really annoying... mabdul 0=* 13:03, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Great. I'm removing the issues section for now. Software that has been known to fail on throttle and packet restricted websites...that's not really helpful to the general public. Heck, I'm a geek and it's not helping me either. ^{XF Law} _{talk at me} 02:47, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Split...(again)

It seems that there is support of not splitting the article now, so I will propose again that the article be split. Now, that would most likely result in the reversion of this page to pre-merge (with some later changes re-added in), and undeletion of BitTorrent Clients. Also, comparison of BitTorrent Clients would be moved to Comparison of BitTorrent Software, as this includes Libraries. I feel that this is justified because:

A)BitTorrent Clients should mostly be about what a client is, not a chart of comparisons.

B)Having Libraries (and possibly later other BT related software) under the header comparison of BT Clients makes no sense.

If not,I feel the following should be done for obvious reasons:

A)A verified proper merger of the two talk pages (asking an admin) since the merges, moves, etc. has really messed up the history.

B)Moving this Article to 'BitTorrent Software'

C)Redoing headers so that Comparison is readded in as major sections.

D)Adding/Expanding intros for Client and Libraries to detail what they are.

Questions? Comments?

ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 02:37, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

HTTPS Tracker Support

Can we add this as a feature column? Tjwallace87 (talk) 08:30, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

feel free to add this ;) --mabdul 0=* 10:58, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

BitComet

BitComet adds the Software Update Checker application from AppHit. It does not ask for user permision to do it, the software scans local files and reports back to a mothership. Furthermore, the creators of AppHit refuse to offer a way to completely eliminate the software from one's computer. They only say to "disable" it, but there is no third party confirmation that it effectively disables Software Update Checker instead of simply disabling the user notifications while the software keeps working on the background. See

190.141.252.2 (talk) 06:23, 3 December 2008 (UTC) JP

It asks permission during the installation of the application. ^Law _shoot! 07:05, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it does not. You cannot separate AppHit from BitComet. There is no "uninstall" for AppHit. In anyone's book, that is Spyware behaviour. Somehow, the ref did not really show up, so here it is http://blog.bitcomet.com/apphit/post_21527/ 190.141.252.2 (talk) 05:13, 10 December 2008 (UTC) JP.

Should "With Wine" be a valid answer in the Linux/Unix support column?

Being able to run software under Wine isn't support, it's just good work by the Wine project.

Bratch (talk) 14:22, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that it should be valid, as it isn't a native Linux application. Using Wine is just a small degree of separation from saying that it works under a virtual machine. Rurik (talk) 11:23, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

i concur, it shouldn't be under linux/unix support.--Bodigami (talk) 18:55, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Encryption

Encryption is listed twice in the article: under General and under Features I. I think it should be removed under General, since it belongs more under features as under general. But maybe we should add a column under General about 'still under active development'.

Greetings,
Old Death (talk) 17:26, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

didn't recognized that anypbody add this(was some ip). so I reverted this edit now! if a client is not longer under deveopment you can change (please in every table) the rh-template to an rh2-template to indicate that it is discontinued (does anybody know the lisence of bt5?) mabdul 0=* 17:55, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Which programs are really spyware/adware/malware free?

For example, client "BitTorrent" wants to install a dubious program "BitTorrent DNA", a toolbar "Ask.com" etc. Same with other clients. The spyware column of the list is useless (except maybe for lawyers?) --84.189.70.107 (talk) 23:53, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

BitTorrent DNA imo is a security threat, but not a malware, adware, or spyware. The toolbars are additional things software vendors package on, and as long as it is not mandatory is not adware. Read up the definitions of spyware, adware, and malware. It would fall under unwanted/bloatware though. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 01:36, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I have updated the malware column with references and changes. Everything marked "Yes" without an inline citation has been certified 100% free or clean by Softpedia. Theymos (talk) 11:23, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Hope you don't mind the little WP:IAR I did in partially reverting your reverting of a edit Theymos on Vuze, there really isn't adware in the classic UI, citation or not (I guess one could cite a image of the classic UI). That is, through updating the engine (Azureus), not through installing. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 05:43, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Softpedia's issue is that the Vuze installer installs a Vuze toolbar and changes the homepage by default, not that the program itself displays advertising. I use Vuze in classic view for all of my torrent downloads, and I wouldn't classify it as adware, either. However, I think that for consistency we should stick with Softpedia's definition of adware and list is as such, or at least list it as "disputed", with references to Download.com (which lists it as adware-free) and Softpedia. Theymos (talk) 05:28, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I felt a explanation instead of just two citations would have been more useful but that doesn't satisfy WP:V..... ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 06:16, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

There is no advertising in either view. The Vuze view has some advertising in the browser frame, but I wouldn't consider that to be adware (like ads in Firefox don't make it adware). So I don't think your explanation was necessary. No part of the Azureus.exe program is adware. It can only be considered adware if you count the toolbar that the installer tries to install. Since Softpedia does count that, we can't just put "Yes", and I think that "Disputed" is fairer to Vuze than a flat-out "Adware" listing. Theymos (talk) 10:37, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

uTorrent

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

There is an active dispute started regarding uTorrent status as a trojan, citing a page from SoftPedia (site that makes money from advertising when people surf, profits by quantity of content) that only gives a "malware free certification" that is earned with "tested in the Softpedia Labs", with no mention of what methods are used in testing, and if they research known threats against said program. They also have no accountability as malware testers. The original citation that identifies the known threat is a well trusted source (Computer Associates Malware Database). 11:48, 14 March 2009 (EST) —Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|12.216.194.126 (talk) 15:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC)Rootopian]] comment added by 12.216.194.126 (talk)

I've removed the malware text from the article. The CA citation that you provided, here, seems to refer to a separate program that uses the same name as uTorrent, and utilized the same initial file name as one of uTorrent's releases, or is just an erroneous entry by CA. The actual uTorrent release with the same name, found here at FileHippo, is a known good program. The real uTorrent does not create the same files or registry keys that are evidenced by the CA entry. Finally, the release in question came out in April of 2007 - two years ago. Even if they were referring to the same application, the entry would be outdated and deprecated by a modern security entry. I've gone through various forums for details, and most just chalk it up to faulty heuristics (a widely known issue). The only place where it is noted that "uTorrent" creates those files and registry keys is ONLY on the CA site, reducing its notability in this case. And while it's OR, I just installed that version itself into a test environment and monitored its activity, which countered CA's entry. You are also applying a heavy dose of POV to this dispute by your post here, giving credibility to CA and removing credibility from SoftPedia through baseless attacks. There are numerous sites stamping that release as good, and only one showing that it's bad and giving results that are not in line with its actual usage and installation. Rurik (talk) 17:25, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Your reply includes original research, which is against policy, as stated at the top of this page. The statement about accountability is based on fact and not POV. The business of content based sites are to include as much content as possible for a viable amount of traffic. Each hit produces revenue from various forms of advertising. This contrasts from security databases published by major Anti-Malware vendors. False positives and incompleteness can negatively impact the companies revenue, as it is another product of the same research customers count on to protect clients from malware and security threats. There is no indication in SoftPedias' site that there is any accountability for what they may deem safe or unsafe. Wikipedia is built on neutrality, and should not be used as an advertisement for SoftPedia or any other site. I have nothing against SoftPedia, but its functionality is not such that it can be used as an authority for threat awareness. Heuristics is only used on what are not known threats. The presence of uTorrent as a named threat in the database signifies it as a known threat, as opposed to a faulty heuristics result in an end-users virus scan. As this dispute has not been resolved, the edit made by Rurik is reverted as it was prematurely marked as malware free-- despite the dispute. —Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|12.216.194.126 (talk) 15:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC)Rootopian]] comment added by 12.216.194.126 (talk) 04:29, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

The CA page is a false positive. It is detecting uTorrent's NSIS installer, which is very widely recognized as being safe. You can see this in the "Also known as" section: "Trojan-Downloader.NSIS.Agent.ac".

Additionally, the CA page is obviously automatically generated and therefore not a reliable source. Softpedia manually checks everything that they certify. Theymos (talk) 06:18, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

On the basis of common sense, this information should not be in the article. Your attack on SoftPedia is baseless, as CA is also a company that makes money by making as many virus reports as possible, even if automatically generated and not relevant to an actual product. (I've worked with CA on responses before, I know their SOPs) SoftPedia has published my software on their site, so I know the detail of the testing that they perform. Many of the false positive reports on uTorrent seem to originate from their usage of an executable packer: a technology that allows smaller files but is also used by malware. Many AV are also hitting on NSIS, a valid tool that just happens to be used by many malware as well [1]. The virus claims are disputed various times over the years [2] [3] [4] [5]. I'd find more, but this is really unneeded. One scanner picked up one single version of uTorrent from two years ago and marked it as a false positive. This does not make uTorrent malware. Rurik (talk) 12:47, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Please state your sources. You state uTorrent "...is very widely recognized as being safe", without any source that can counterballance CA's authority. Your claim that the page was "...obviously automatically generated and therefore not a reliable source" is a statement of POV. There is no indication that the page has been automaticaly generated and has gone a couple years without any check made by a company much larger than Softpedia. Again, why is SoftPedia trusted without any accountability, while CA's authority is scoffed when CA has significant accountability through liability towards both their product and service?

Detects Program, not the installer —Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|12.216.194.126 (talk) 15:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC)Rootopian]] comment added by 12.216.194.126 (talk) 15:16, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

From WP:RS: "Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article..." The only sentences on the CA page are boilerplate definitions of a trojan. Nowhere is it even stated that uTorrent is spyware. The assertion that uTorrent is spyware is not directly supported by the source, so the CA page is not a reliable source.

I said that NSIS was very widely recognized as being safe. Since it is used by hundreds of well-known programs, it had better be. uTorrent itself is also widely recognized as being safe. If uTorrent is installed on over 5% of all US computers ([6]), then why is CA the only site listing it as malware? You'd think that if a single bit of malware was installed on more computers than the Storm, Srizbi, Conficker, and Kraken botnets combined it would be bigger news. Theymos (talk) 18:08, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

You're right, nowhere is it even stated that uTorrent is spyware. In fact, Theymos's post here is the first mention of uTorrent and spyware in the same paragraph. Stay on subject, do not straw man. TiroGrande (talk) 23:37, 15 March 2009 (UTC)TiroGrande

I am very disappointed with what I am seeing here. Some people actually need to use this website for information, and there has been a back and forth editing conflict with the discussion about the edit and dispute unresolved. I required a Torrent program recently, and because of CA I decided against uTorrent because of the Malware. A total of 5 different Malware programs found frequently, not just NSIS. As for the idea that a program with malware on it should be big news if used widely, I refer you to the Adobe family of programs, business applications I am forced to use by my various employers that are riddled with brand new forms of creative malware, used on far more than 5% of the nation's computers. And as for this idea that Softpedia is a trusted source for any security information, and should be trusted more than a security company, is terrible. And I am glad Rurik revealed his true motivations for trying to get an advertising volume publisher trusted over a security company when admitting they are publishing his software. Computer Associates, on the other hand, only publishes security software and is in the business of making sure all software is clean. Unless further evidence can be brought in to discount all five of CA's results for malware on uTorrent, a trusted security company's information should supercede a volume advertisers information.

Furthermore, while the issue is still in dispute, any attempt to edit the page as if the discussion is over just because you made a reply is in serious error. Do not remove the indication of the dispute until the dispute has been removed. TiroGrande (talk) 18:30, 15 March 2009 (UTC)TiroGrande

Please keep your comments to the issue on hand and not try to invent motivations behind others' posts. Reading through your comment I now understand why pages here have to be treated carefully. There are numerous naive people who do not understand technology or software applications and are easily influenced the what is on WP. If a product is falsely labeled was malware it will turn people away from a trustworthy program and could cause libelous issues for WP. That said, I cannot emphatically disagree the anon user and you (a brand new account with a single edit, suspiciously right in the middle of the dispute when anon would have faced a 3RR) more on every single one of your counts.

• You (and anon) are trying to label a current release of uTorrent as malware because a file released two years ago was, once and only once, screened as malware by a singular entity.
• The modern version of this software has been trusted voraciously by numerous, independent sources.
• There is no evidence, even first-hand by a computer forensics tech, that the actual uTorrent release of that era even closely matches the reports from this single entity. Though that is OR, there are numerous forum posts and responses from the developers and users of uTorrent that repeat this.
• It is not worth the effort or trouble to verify or discredit the five results from CA. You don't even make clear what these five results are. There are four A.K.A.s, four registry keys that don't exist in that program, and a list of files that cannot be used to accurately identify a program (a hash would have to be used, such as an MD5 or SHA-1, which CA neglects to publish).
• A singular source, even though a notable one, does not make a fact completely true and seems to be taking on undue weight here. CA has a history of other mistakes continually. The entire future of a software product cannot be labeled by a single page written by a single vendor from two years ago.
• One final note: nmap is listed by CA as spyware.

To me, it sounds like an effort to insert anti-uTorrent POV into the article. Rurik (talk) 20:46, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Anon looks to be named "Rootopian". Not only did you miss that, but your wonderful bullet point post seems to result from one crucial thing, a failure to read the CA page linked here. More than NSIS are tagged as Malware and have come from uTorrent recently. I will not repeat myself anymore, and repeating your own points does not alter the fact that they were addressed. And bringing up spyware like Theymos to use a similar straw man is suspicious. NMap's classification and/or use as spyware is not being debated here, it is being debated elsewhere and you can go deal with it there. However, I thank you for the fact you refrained from changing the disputed section just because you made a reply and expected your reply to be final and binding. That is a good move in a more civil direction, and an improvement on Wikipedia as a whole. I was about to contact an admin, too. But I care a lot less now that the immature edit war is over. Thank you.TiroGrande (talk) 23:37, 15 March 2009 (UTC)TiroGrande

Oh, and the pages you linked to of CA supposedly identifying friendly programs as malware. Both news articles state it was CA software flagging the anti-virus programs as harmful. This is a known and common problem among security software, that it usually identifies other security software as harmful due to their similar activities. This in no way reflects a problem with the company, but merely shows the company markets anti-malware that has the typical problems of anti-malware. Why would that make the company itself an untrustworthy source, if they have at least as good a track record as other companies? —Preceding unsigned comment added by TiroGrande (talk • contribs) 00:13, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

There still has been no case made as to why that tag should be included and why there is undue weight upon the source. I am merely waiting for others to voice their opinions here before it is removed for having no merit upon the article or the software in question. I don't want to rush in to a 3RR :) If none are made within the next 24 hours, I will open it up to a noticeboard for a second opinion. The other "a.k.a's" against uTorrent do not have to be challenged. The claims of malware against uTorrent are based upon files and data that do not exist in the program, lending credence that the entire entry is false. There is no way to support or discredit it because the data does not exist. You cannot prove that the information is correct, even through OR, because the files supporting the malware claims cannot be found in the program. The only source for this information in the entire world is that one page, that counters the actual data itself that it is supposed to be representing. That is also the only, single, version of uTorrent that is called out by CA. Beta 1137 was released on 8 April, 2007. Earlier, Beta 1065 was released on 5 April, 2007. Afterwards, Beta 1170 was released on 11 April, 2007. So, even if believing CA in their claims, in the past 4 years of uTorrent development, for only 4 days there was a sketchy security alert. That alert never returned. 4 days while under ownership of BitTorrent, Inc. And therefore you wish to claim that the entire program is, has, and continues to be, malware? The facts don't add up. Thank you, Rurik (talk) 00:52, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

And that is reason to revert it as if the discussion were over? And now you yourself set a time limit, by what authority? You also have only Softpedia as your source, and have only been able to back up Softpedia by claiming a description of their business model is an attack. None of these are reasons to end the discussion and claim it is over. Continue to refrain from editing, even beyond your 24 hour imposed limit, until the discussion is over. TiroGrande (talk) 01:34, 16 March 2009 (UTC)TiroGrande

You presume much incorrectly. I made no mention of time limits of removing the text, simply that after 24 hours I will voluntarily seek outside assistance to resolve your dispute with the content. There was no comment made by me saying that the discussion was over; in contrary, I would love for this to continue and to seek closure for those wishing to dispute the content of the article. You are also infatuated with the SoftPedia source, as was the anon poster above, when there have been numerous other sources provided in this discussion. I wish to protect the page from vandalism and POV. It wasn't until this week that someone altered the page to say that programs are malicious, yet refuse to back up that claim outside of a single link, instead choosing to attack the claims against a single source, causing this discussion. I will make no edits to revert this new addition until there are more opinions weighed here, since it seems there are some very vociferous supporters of the edit. Rurik (talk) 12:09, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I've asked about the reliability of CA.com at RSN. Hopefully they will help us resolve this dispute. Theymos (talk) 03:03, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Cute, Rurik. But there are still several premature edits as if the discussion were over, made by you. Why the 24 hour limit, why not seek this help right away? TiroGrande (talk) 12:27, 17 March 2009 (UTC)TiroGrande

My edits were made on the basis of WP:BOLD and WP:COMMONSENSE. As an expert in this field, I saw the new addition as clearly wrong and removed it, multiple times. What you see as my finalizing a decision before a proper discussion was, in actuality, me treating obviously bad information as vandalism and treating it as such. I was not aware that people believed the information to be true. When it was clear that some were going to argue for their merits, a discussion was made here, as per overall WP guidelines. I try to give ample time for casual watchers of an article to respond before making a plea to the outside RfC, thus the reason for the 24 hour, which is an extremely minor point overall. Please don't personalize the edits and take offense with the actions. We are not here to argue over procedures, but to discuss the content itself. If you feel that I made mistakes in my actions, feel free to inquire to an admin for an outside opinion. Any further discussion over the actions and procedures here should take place elsewhere, as this page is already getting long and should be dealing specifically with the article content itself. Thank you, Rurik (talk) 15:40, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

RfC: Is uTorrent Malware?

In regards to discussion above, is the source stating that µTorrent is malware legitimate for this table? Would that source warrant uTorrent's "Spyware, Adware, Malware-free" column be left as disputed or "No"?

Summarizing my comments above, I don't think that CA.com's virus encyclopedia is reliable in this case because it looks like it's automatically generated, the source doesn't directly state that uTorrent is malware, and it contradicts a large number of other reliable sources. Theymos (talk) 12:29, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Likewise, there is only one source saying that it is malware, and numerous sources claiming that it is safe. The one source claiming it is malware is dated from two years ago and only dealt with a single beta release that is completely deprecated. In regards to CA.com's entry method, their Malware Submittal form is used for these entries. This seems a case of someone downloading a viral copy from an untrusted source and then wrongly submitting it as the actual program from the actual source, which CA automatically included in its report. The items contained within CA.com's entry have not been found within the original same file from a trusted source, lending additional discredit to the source. For those reasons, I believe that this new source should be deleted and that uTorrent be reset to its original data of Malware-free. Rurik (talk) 13:23, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

• This is pretty much a no-brainer. The arguments are specious and the evidence flawed. Feel free to put it back as it was. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:31, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Please take a look at this [7]. Rootopian —Preceding undated comment added 15:37, 7 April 2009 (UTC).

Thanks for the additional page, though this would fall under the same argument. It still pertains to information that is not actually part of the program itself, and is from a separate program that shares the uTorrent name. Even if it was correct, this site is even less notable than CA because it fails to even address the version of uTorrent. That's akin to saying that Microsoft Word is malicious, when actually it was a beta release of Microsoft Word 98 for Macs. I took a few minutes to search some more and found numerous more examples of the flawed logic: (false positive), ([that report was some patched/hacked version of a beta client"), (infected person realized he downloaded from an untrusted source instead of utorrent.com). CA.com even has a Knowledge Document explaining how to configure their firewall to work with uTorrent[8], which may seem odd if the program really was malicious. Please stop this ludicrous argument. At this point in time, uTorrent is not malicious, nor is there any reliable evidence that shows that it was released by its developers as malware in the past. Rurik (talk) 18:53, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

BitSpirit

Suggesting this client be added to the page.

http://www.167bt.com/en/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Daily Activist (talk • contribs) 01:59, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Done. Theymos (talk) 02:46, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

would somebody write an article which won't be deleted? otherwise we have to comment out bitspirit! mabdul 0=* 14:34, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

BitSpirit currently fails WP:N. WP:N doesn't apply to the content of articles, though, so whether is should be included here is a matter to be determined by us. I think that it contains enough features and sets itself apart enough to be included. Theymos (talk) 23:34, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

If it fail WP:N then there is not any reason to include this client here! mabdul 0=* 08:18, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:N policies "only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article. They don't directly limit the content of articles." I think that even though BitSpirit doesn't have significant secondary coverage, it does have enough coverage from sites such as SoftPedia to pass WP:V and be included here. Theymos (talk) 19:55, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

CLI

An anon added uTorrent as featuring a CLI (whether it was intentional or not I'm not sure as they were correcting other things [9]). I've removed this as I don't think it is accurate. While uTorrent does have a few command line functions, as I suspect a number of clients, they allow very limited control. For example you can't pause torrents, change priority, change most settings, create a torrent etc. There's no source saying uTorrent has a CLI either. Do we have a consensus as to what a CLI is? Nil Einne (talk) 12:58, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that we have a common definition for that. mabdul 18:07, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Why not just use {{partial}} and come up with a definition?ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 20:57, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

ok! what need a cli to get a yes? mabdul 21:20, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Pause/Resume features

Many torrents cannot be successfully downloaded in one session. It seems common to store download status info in hidden places and/or unique formats. For LiveCD or portable usage, this means that the download cannot be resumed, rendering the whole process pointless....

Which torrent clients store status info in the same directory with the torrent itself (rather than some hidden location), so that it is easy to resume the download in a portable way? Do any torrent clients store such status data in interchangeable formats, making it possible to resume the download with a different client? -96.237.5.138 (talk) 21:42, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you understand how torrents work. Status data isn't essential to resume a download. If you resume a download without status data, you will likely have to download some content again, data that has been downloaded but is smaller then the part size, but you'd usually get 90% or more of what you'd downloaded I expect. It doesn't matter what client you use, well unless the client is so brain dead it doesn't bother to check the file/s if it/they already exist. You may of course have some problem if the client gives the files an extra extention when they are incomplete but that is easily solved by renaming and is usually an option that can be turned off. Also status data isn't stored in a hidden location. It's usually stored with the program's config data, which is commonly stored in the user's (or all user's) application data folder in Windows or something like the .config in the user's home directory in Unix like OSes. Nil Einne (talk) 15:35, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia, you done uTorrent wrong!

Resolved

 – No problems with article, uTorrent is adware, as is Vuze ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 00:58, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

The reference that supposedly identifies uTorrent as having adware says:

"Reasons why this program is marked as adware: Contains third-party services unrelated to the program's functionality, intended to generate income"

That's it. No identification of what these alleged third-party services are. Not to mention the fact that their definition of "adware" is dodgy; it includes things other than ads.

McAffee says there is no adware in uTorrent:

"In our tests, we found downloads on this site were free of adware, spyware, and other potentially unwanted programs."

http://www.siteadvisor.jp/sites/utorrent.com/summary/

Yampolsky Boris (Virus Analyst, Kaspersky Lab) says that it is a false positive, not adware:

http://forum.kaspersky.com/index.php?showtopic=42548

Torrent Freak claims that at some unspecified time in the future there will be an ask.com toolbar option...

http://torrentfreak.com/utorrent-is-going-to-make-money-090422/

...but I just downloaded and installed the latest version and there is no such option, and no adware of any kind was installed (yeah, I know; original research... So sue me. This is for a talk page discussion, not something I would put in the main article. If you have a better way to prove a negative, let me know.)

and the uTorrent privacy policy says:

"Spyware and Adware: We oppose spyware and adware. Spyware is software installed on your computer without your consent or control. It can record and transmit your Internet activity and other personal information or change your computer's security settings. Adware is spyware that sends you unwanted pop-ups or spam. [uTorrent] never uses these unwanted and harmful technologies."

http://www.utorrent.com/legal/privacy/

The bottom line is that Mcaffe and Kaspersky are a heck of a lot more authoritative sources than Softpedia is, and the adware accusation should be removed.

(I have no connection with uTorrent or any other torrent client other than as a user).

72.251.91.66 (talk) 02:55, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

The Kaspersky thing is a link to their forum and is 2 years old so is completely irrelevant. Siteadvisor's report also appears outdated as it didn't scan the version Softpedia claims have adware. The claims of uTorrent are of course completely irrelevant, if we trusted claims of software vendors then no client would be malware/adware Nil Einne (talk) 15:17, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

From [10] it appears the Ask toolbar has already been included since 5/05. My own tests prove this is true. So either you didn't pay attention and now have the Ask toolbar, or you didn't really test the latest stable version (hint: the beta/alpha version isn't the latest stable version and the stable version is the thing to test) or you're making stuff up. Note that the toolbar isn't actually part of the download, it simply downloads and installs it by default unless you tell it not to. I expect the automatic siteadvisor scan may not be smart enough to detect this. Disclamer: I use uTorrent myself Nil Einne (talk) 15:23, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I checked again and found that my IE addons now has the ask.com toolbar, but it is disabled (possibly not default behavior; I have all security settings set to high and every disablable feature turned off -- I always use Firefox, never IE, so I disable as much of IE as I can.) I apologize and retract my previous comments; uTorrent is indeed adware. This, BTW, shows the wisdom of bringing such things up in a talk page without logging on rather thanjust editing the main page and ending up with egg on your face. Thak you, Nil Einne, for taking the trouble to correct my error. Sorry about that.

72.251.91.59 (talk) 11:12, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

This issue can be solved quite easily by adding a brief description. For example the uTorrent field would be:

Adware; optional installation of Ask.com Toolbar.

Of course further references would probably be needed, as the Softpedia articles don't go in to much detail about it.--Otterathome (talk) 19:53, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Peer Exchange (Features I)

The column 'Peer exchange' in the Features I table says only 'yes' or 'no', which doesn't really help for comparison, because most of the PEX implementations are not compatible with clients other than the client which implemented them. I think we should add in this column which clients this PEX is compatible to. (Using the client which first introduced the respective PEX implementation as name reference.)

Greetings, Old Death (talk) 08:52, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

All major clients support ut_pex. Azureus used to support only AZ_PEX, but it now supports both. BitTyrant is based on an old version of Azureus, so it only supports AZ_PEX. Transmission supports both. Arctic Torrent, BT5, BitFlu, BitLord, Shareaza, and Torrent Swapper might not support ut_pex. Theymos (talk) 15:46, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Then it might be useful adding a note to those covering the issue... EDIT: Shareaza definitively supports PEX with clients other than Shareaza. Dunno if this is compatible to uT...

Greetings, Old Death (talk) 11:01, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Vuze licensing

is it FOSS or not? ...it looks like it is but uses an EULA.--Bodigami (talk) 18:52, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

It's not. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 20:58, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

It is. The software itself *is* GPL. The platform is not GPL, but the platform isn't distributed as part of the software - the platform is a separate service (and not part of the client itself) - so you cannot say that it is not FOSS based on that. Acrooks (talk) 15:09, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Quote from main vuze page:

"Up to version 2.5.0.4, Azureus was distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL); beginning with the version 3 distribution, the license presented upon installation changed. While it still states that the "Azureus Application" is available under the GPL, completing installation requires the user to agree to the terms of the "Vuze Platform", which include restrictions on use, reverse-engineering (Section 8.12), and sublicensing(Section 8.2). As with many similar licenses, the Azureus licence includes a prohibition on use of the software by people "under the age of 18".(Section 1 and Section 8.10) Allegedly, the TOS only applies to the website, vuze.com, and not the software([11]), however the actual TOS includes the application as part of the platform.(Section 0)."

ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 20:27, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

If you check the source, you will see that about 80% of the source files include a GPL declaration as part of the source (the remainder have no copyright notice). The EULA displayed during installation doesn't matter if you can compile Vuze from GPL'd source. Theymos (talk) 03:48, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Notice to editors

I've listed a number of BitTorrent client articles for deletion which are on this list. You can see the list at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting/Software#Software.

When the articles are deleted, they will stand out as redlinks, and should then be removed from the list.--Otterathome (talk) 19:49, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think they should be removed, this isn't a list of notable BT clients, but a list of [all] BT clients. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 21:25, 30 May 2009 (UTC) Edit:Clarification: by removed, I meant mention on this page only. I support deletion of individual pages if NN. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 21:38, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

That would violate WP:NOTDIRECTORY/WP:LIST. I listed them for deletion to cut the list down, as the larger it is, the harder it becomes to manage.--Otterathome (talk) 16:29, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

This was originally an article on Comparison of BT Clients, not List, but due to Naming convention, it was renamed list. I'm not sure when the objective of this article changed though, but perhaps if it has, then this article needs a revamp. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 23:07, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Edit Also, nn for a client's own article does not automatically mean nn for an overall article. That is why I successfully got a merge/delete AfD for every single phone sony erricsson phone model (although merger is not done), but why the list article still mentions them. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 23:15, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Otterathome has just deleted large parts of the comparison table. I am not so sure if this should be let, because of the reasons ηoian gave previously. Greetings, Old (talk) 14:48, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Non notability for its own article does not mean that a software or topic is not mentionable in other articles. For example, Exaile was deleted at AfD for "non-notability", yet is still mentioned here. Prove that these are non notable/not mentionable/not relevant to a general comparison/list of BT Clients separately on their own merits instead of "its redlinked". ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 17:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

WP:SAL quite clearly states that Wikipedia should not be randomly listing things which we cannot be sure are ever going to be worthy of their own articles. That applies to comparisons as well. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:17, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

This is not a stand-alone list because there is substantial content beyond just the list. Furthermore, we are not required to follow style guidelines. Inclusion in this article requires only editor consensus and adherence to policies.Theymos (talk) 23:49, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

And there isn't consensus: several editors rightly think that adding minor and incidental clients lies somewhere between trivial cruft and covert advertising. The "proof" that the clients in question are of no concern to Wikipedia is that they could not even stand up to WP's rather lenient standards for notability (namely, a few good references from third parties). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

This is a comparison of BT-Clients and not a comparison of only the most important BT-Clients... This has nothing to do with advertisement, only with completeness, and that's what this article is there for.

Greetings, Old (talk) 08:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

"Completeness" in the sense of Wikipedia need only apply to notable content. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. We need not include every random program on the 'net which professes to be a BitTorrent client: a good guidelines for whether or not to include any particular program is whether or not it has the modicum of references in reliable sources required to have a standalone article. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

None of the examples in that section of the linked policy apply to us, and WP:N explicitly applies only to articles themselves, not their content. If you think that some of the clients should be removed, give some actual reasons instead of wiki-lawyering and we can discuss it. I think that all of the affected clients except Aria2 should be removed because they are very outdated and are missing vital features, and it therefore does not help the reader to include them here. Aria2 is still actively developed and is a full-featured BitTorrent client, so it should be included whether it has an article or not. Theymos (talk) 09:18, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I've already given an "actual reason", and would thank you not to go making accusations of wikilawyering lightly. Redlinked entries don't provide any indication that they're worth including; "notable" is shorthand for that, above and over whatever WP:N says. If Aria2 is such an important client then why doesn't it have its own article? In my opinion adding software to comparison articles like this before it has an article itself is backwards. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:09, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

See List of web browsers and Comparison of web browsers which contain no redlinks. Having clients with no article is a big WP:NOTREPOSITORY and WP:NOTDIRECTORY violation. And if they aren't notable enough for an article, then finding reliable sources would be unlikely. If you keep redlinks, it will turn in to Comparison of text editors, which in its current form is a complete unmanageable mess.--Otterathome (talk) 11:02, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

(outdent)I don't get why you keep hammering the article notability issue. Policy does not support your arguement, nor does logic.

Logic:

Nowhere does it say in any policy that redlinked topics can not be mentioned in another article. Thus, saying that it is indiscriminate solely because it is "redlinked" and therefore "non-notable" is a logical fallacy. Remember: WP:RAP.

Also, remember to avoid WP:OTHERSTUFF and WP:IDONTLIKEIT examples. Just as you stated above, Comparison of text editors has red-links. It is only your opinion that having red links is "bad" and that the first two are the "correct" examples.

Policy:

WP:N says explicitly that: "These notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article. They do not directly limit the content of articles"

In arguments to avoid, it says that:

"notability is not inherited "up", from notable subordinate to parent, either: not every manufacturer of a notable product is itself notable; not every organization to which a notable person belongs (or which a notable person leads) is itself notable"

Therefore, to say that the existence of a subordinate article determines notability is moot. It might not be notable enough for its own article, but it doesn't mean the subject or content can't be used in another article. It is why individual Transformer toys aren't notable (ex. Dispensor (Transformers) which is a redirect) for their own articles, but are mentioned in larger articles (ex. List of Decepticons). ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 00:52, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Edit Furthermore, WP:NOTREPOSITORY says that the following are not allowed:

1. Mere collections of external links or Internet directories. <text omitted as irrelevant>

2. Mere collections of internal links, except for disambiguation pages when an article title is ambiguous, and for lists to assist with article organization and navigation; for these, please follow the guidelines outlined at Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists)#Lead and selection criteria.

3. Mere collections of public domain or other source material such as entire books or source code, original historical documents, letters, laws, proclamations, and other source material that are only useful when presented with their original, unmodified wording. <text omitted as irrelevant>

4. Mere collections of photographs or media files with no text to go with the articles. <text omitted as irrelevant>

I fail to see how the policy supports your argument. This is a comparison of BT clients. Not a "Comparison of Major BT Clients". It is not up to us to decide "Major/Minor." The content is not merely "External Links" ,"Internal Links", "Public Domain", or "Photographs". You should read the policies you are going to mention before doing so. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 01:22, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Edit 2

WP:NOTDIRECTORY states that:

"Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists...they are associated with or significantly contribute to the list topic (for example, Nixon's Enemies List). Wikipedia also includes reference tables and tabular information for quick reference. Merged groups of small articles based on a core topic are certainly permitted. (See Lists (stand alone lists) - appropriate topics for clarification.)

I believe that a Comparisons oriented article sufficiently meets the above requirements.

Conclusion:

Again, all of these are to determine article notability, and even in the arguments you presented, they support the objective discussion of each content's notability instead of outright declaring that "redlinked" subjects are "NN" in all cases. I hope we won't have to resort to Policy Shopping after my rebuttal of all of the currently mentioned policy based arguments on why red-linked subjects can still be used as content in articles (not that I'm accusing anyone of anything as I don't think anyone is bad faithed here, it is just that I'd rather all of the arguments be laid out so that I don't have to spend another round doing research on said arguments. Constantly looking up policies on wikipedia is annoying).ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 01:25, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Last Edit:

I noticed I overlooked refuting WP:NOT#INFO, so here is the text:

1. Plot-only description of fictional works: <text omitted as irrelevant>

2. Lyrics databases. <text omitted as irrelevant>

1. Excessive listing of statistics. Long and sprawling lists of statistics may be confusing to readers and reduce the readability and neatness of our articles. In addition, articles should contain sufficient explanatory text to put statistics within the article in their proper context for a general reader. In cases where this may be necessary, (e.g. Opinion polling for the United States presidential election, 2008), consider using tables to enhance the readability of lengthy data lists.

2. News reports. <text omitted as irrelevant>

The only one above that could be applied is excessive listing of statistics. However, this is not a statistics page, it is not opinion polling or numbers, or statistics in general (use define:statistics in google if you want). Add the fact that WP:NOT#INFO (aka Indiscriminate collection of information) defers to WP:N, which only affects notability of articles as a whole, it is evident that this policy does not bar said content by default. I have found an essay that supports your argument though. I do support deleting some of the red-linked clients, but not on the overarching basis that red-linked clients can not be listed in the article, rather on individual reasons.ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 01:52, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I've read all of it and it seems that the quoted texts support your argument. But what about creating an article on 'small BitTorrent clients' or 'old BT clients' and use this article to give two sentences of information on every of the clients in question (it could be only a bit more than a simple list). All of the now red links coule be redirected to that collective article. Wouldn't this be a usefull idea?

Greetings, Old (talk) 17:32, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Personally I support deleting the ones under contention that are coincidentally red-linked, but not for the fact that they are red-linked, and not without going through the process of consensus. I'm just refuting the notion that we are barred from mentioning subjects without their own article. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 19:17, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Clarification: When I talked about Major and Minor, I was not talking about notability. I still support notability, just not major/minor, and I do not support the de facto assumption that red-link=NN=no mention in any article. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 19:30, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Should the list contain clients that don't have articles?

Should the list contain all BitTorrent clients, including the ones that don't have articles? Discussion can be read at Talk:List_of_BitTorrent_clients#Notice_to_editors.--Otterathome (talk) 15:08, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

The debate is actually if we should (or are required to) remove all redlinked clients. No one is arguing that every BitTorrent client in existence should be included in the article, just that failing notability-based policies and guidelines is not, in itself, a good enough reason to remove them. Theymos (talk) 15:47, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I say no. Similar to the Comparison of web browsers is the situation in this comparison: their are too many clients and often they are not notable and have too less features, based on some other client or are discontinued. mabdul 17:38, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Isn't this a duplicate of the above section? Why are we starting a new section?! You did state above that "When the articles are deleted, they will stand out as redlinks, and should then be removed from the list.--Otterathome (talk) 19:49, 29 May 2009 (UTC)" which is what we were discussing. Isn't this just rephrasing the question more favorably? We never talked about including all clients, in fact, in the section above, I supported removal of the clients, but not based on the fact that they didn't have articles. So my answer would be no, but that does not mean that we automatically exclude those without articles, rather, each should be based on sound objective consensus, not just a de facto removal. (I support Theymos suggestion of removing old clients/obsolete). Can we close this RfC for WP:SNOW (you should have put up a RfC for the above section instead)? I can't imagine anyone approving we include everything, however again, as I and Theymos iterated, my consent here does not mean that I approve of your assertion that red-lnked articles should be removed by default on an article. Can we please return to the proper discussion? (maybe insert an arbitrary break).

ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 19:09, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Edit Request closure, I added in a disclaimer that I seem to remember was once present in the article. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 19:26, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Reverting article name to "Comparison of BT Clients/Software"

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was moved to Comparison of BitTorrent clients, although this could be made moot by a later merge decision. Aervanath (talk) 02:05, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

---

List of BitTorrent clients → Comparison of BitTorrent clients — I find it interesting that both List and Comparison of Web Browsers exist above. The article was originally named comparison of BT clients and its goal still is Comparison of BT Clients/Software. It was only changed solely because of obeying "rules" but I feel that if other Comparison of ____ articles exist, why must this one conform to some overarching rules when reverting the name would be much more accurate? (using WP:RAP and WP:IAR) ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 01:02, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

• I agree. The actual naming scheme that is used across Wikipedia (ignoring guidelines) seems to be that big charts of information are named "Comparison of X" and lists (often broken into categories) are named "List of X". Theymos (talk) 01:50, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

As a comment, if we were to revert naming, we would have to enlist the help of an admin in fixing page histories and other issues as this page has been moved at least 5 times and there are lots of re-directs and possibly double-redirects. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 01:58, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

++ just my 2c mabdul 17:46, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Update Added template (as the old page still exists), the reason for reverting to software is that this page also includes libraries, hence software is more inclusive/accurate. If no one disputes this in 2 days, I'll replace it with db instead. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 19:48, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest either Comparison of BitTorrent clients or Comparison of BitTorrent client software, the first being what I would personally use as it is more concise. There is also a BitTorrent tracker software article that covers tracker software that also needs to be renamed to Comparison of... so Comparison of BitTorrent software would be ambiguous. As for redirects, those shouldn't be a problem and are easily fixed (as long as no one has done any cut-and-paste moves). Tothwolf (talk) 02:09, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I suggested the article be merged into the proposed reverted name Comparison of BT software article because trackers are already mentioned in this article, so it wouldn't be much work to merge the other trackers into the Comparison of BT software page, just spinning the tracker column out to its own table. There's no need for redundant lists. I'll get a mock-up of the merged/renamed version in my sandbox tomorrow, since the intro needs to be reworded and the notes converted to using {{note}} as well.ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 06:13, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Uhm, I don't see tracker server software listed. I can't agree with a merge of BitTorrent tracker software into the client comparison article at all. The BitTorrent tracker software comparison article is still being created and will grow much larger over time. Trying to merge these together would not be a good idea as it will limit that article's growth potential. Tothwolf (talk) 07:57, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't change the tracker article. Let is as it is. It will grow by the time. don't throw different topics in the same article. That's why i find the gnutella article so bad o.O mabdul 16:11, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay, if they shouldn't be merged, then do you think that there should be a note pointing to the comparison of BT trackers page then? ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 19:57, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Done, wikilink for Comparison of BitTorrent tracker software added to the {{BitTorrent}} navigation template. Tothwolf (talk) 03:55, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

RFC: Should the list contain clients that don't have articles?

Should the list contain BitTorrent clients that don't have articles? Discussion can be read at Talk:List_of_BitTorrent_clients#Notice_to_editors.--Otterathome (talk) 11:58, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Again, what is wrong with just putting the RFC above the current discussion??? Or is this like an arbitrary break cause I have no idea how RfC's work.ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 19:54, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you are still looking for opinions on this matter (the format of this RfC is a little confusing), but I'll weigh in anyway. I think that the list should contain redlinks only for notable clients that may deserve their own Wikipedia article. That's a pretty good rule of thumb for any redlink, to be honest. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:03, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, list articles such as this should include such information. List articles often take the place of numerous stubs which may or may not be borderline for WP:N (which only covers standalone articles). As for red links, if there is no standalone article and there is likely to never be a standalone article (even a sourced stub) then there is no reason to wikilink it. Tothwolf (talk) 04:02, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree w/Scjessey: notable clients should be listed regardless of whether or not they have articles. non-notable clients w/out articles probably should not. For instance, I could write a bit-torrent client just for the hell of it. Were i to do so, I do not think it should be in the list. There has to be a bar set for relevancy to the reader, and we call that bar "notability". Kevin Baas^talk 16:15, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

You stated that in a confusing way. I think you meant clients which have not yet gone through AFD to determine their notability can be included, but clients which have had articles but were deleted through AFD as they weren't notable should not be included.--Otterathome (talk) 13:38, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

The notability guideline only helps determine if a subject should have a standalone article. The guideline does not determine if a subject should be included in a Comparison or other type of article and was never intended to be used to support bulk removal of information from other articles, such as what you just decided to do in this edit. --Tothwolf (talk) 14:07, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

The reason we can't do that was said by Kevin above.--Otterathome (talk) 14:15, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

No, this is a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT on your part and this is not the first time you've removed content here. While I see no reason to include a red link for all of these clients, the guidelines do not support your stance and wholesale removal of information. --Tothwolf (talk) 14:27, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Great assumption of bad faith there, how about you respond to Kevin's reason I pointed out instead of accusing me of removing the content just because I don't like it. Or can't you do that because there is no real solution to the problem Kevin said.--Otterathome (talk) 14:47, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Two things here, Oterrathome, 1. I said "notable clients should be listed regardless of whether or not they have articles." Now that may have been confusing to you because it wasn't what you wanted me to say. so you re-worded it to make it contradict the very clear and straightforward wording i used, and then slapped my name on it. (And I don't appreciate that.) It is quite possible that something could merit mention in a wikipedia article yet not merit its own article. In fact, that happens quite often. There is no need for Tothwolf to respond to what I wrote because everything he's said so far is in perfect agreement with it. 2. I do not see any assumptions of bad faith here. I see an editor referring to policies and guidelines in relation to actions, which is perfectly appropriate. And excepting possibly WP:IDONTLIKEIT, he is correct on what the guidelines state and do not state, as well as how they relate to the matter at hand. Assuming bad faith, however, has a more specific/narrorer meaning than you seem to be giving it: it means assuming that a user is not trying to work cooperatively towards a better article. And I don't see him doing that here. To the contrary, he seems to be operating under the assumption that you want to work cooperatively towards improving the article. oh, and 3. you should not make radical changes to a section of an article under discussion without consensus, esp. one under RFC. Kevin Baas^talk 18:50, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

After we have established that no policy supports removing clients without articles, we can start work on a formal criteria for inclusion. All clients would be bound by these criteria (which could, of course, be changed after further discussion), and it would not be possible to just include any ol' BT client. In fact, most of the clients without articles will be removed when we establish a criteria for inclusion. Just not all of them. Theymos (talk) 15:21, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Really the only criteria for these types of articles is the verifiability policy. If the information can be verified, then there is no reason not to include it. This is not limited just to published works either. The software's official documentation is usually preferred when verifying features and functionality over a book due to the fact that software (and in particular open source software) changes rapidly so software books are usually outdated by the time they reach the printer. --Tothwolf (talk) 16:01, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

That's the only content policy we must follow, but I think it's reasonable to consider additional restrictions. For example, does QTorrent really deserve mention when it is just a GUI for BitTornado? I don't think so, and I think we should establish clear consensus on what attributes a client must have for it to be included without an article of its own. Theymos (talk) 17:50, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, the first thing I see here is if QTorrent is a front-end for BitTornado then it should have been merged and redirected instead of being sent to AfD (and it can still be undeleted to allow for a merge/redirect). If it is strictly a front-end to BitTornado, then there is no reason to include a row for it in the comparison tables. If however, its functionality differs, then it should be included. For cases where something is nothing more than a front-end, those can be noted (and linked via a redirect) using {{Refun}} and {{Note}} templates. --Tothwolf (talk) 18:27, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Usage share of BitTorrent clients

Anyone think Usage share of BitTorrent clients would be possible? I'm unsure due to the amount of sources available. I started Usage share of file sharing applications but gave up because file sharing applications is too broad. But kept the sources. See articles under Category:Usage share for the type of article it would be.--Otterathome (talk) 16:45, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

New related article

• Usage share of BitTorrent clients.--Otterathome (talk) 12:25, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Merge Just merge it into a larger article. I don't think there needs to be a Usage Share article. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 00:34, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I am guessing you have that idea because of the current size of the article. As BitTorrent is still a booming protocol, it should one day be the closer to the size of other share usage articles.--Otterathome (talk) 21:10, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Regardless, I don't see the point of having a separate page. There are so many BT clients, that maintaining an accurate article with the amount of statistics in other usage pages would be untenable, and just having the major ones would fit fine in the main article. I think having a image/chart would be a more useful way of presenting the information.ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 22:51, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

We currently only have limited data on usage share. See Usage share of web browsers, the data available to them only covers no more than 10 different browsers.--Otterathome (talk) 00:56, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm personally for keeping usage share articles standalone when the general topic already has a large number of articles. Two suggestions I have for Usage share of BitTorrent clients are the addition of one or more pie charts similar to Image:Web browser usage share.svg and possibly expanding the usage share article to also cover tracker software (if usage share data for tracker software is available). --Tothwolf (talk) 15:50, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Removal of unsourced/no article non-notable clients

An alternative approach. Clients listed here which don't have articles require sources to prove they actually exist, any that have no sources are subject to removal per WP:V.--Otterathome (talk) 18:05, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Proving a client does actually exist should not be too difficult. +1 for the proposal to keep Spam out of the list. mfg, OldDeath (talk) 22:00, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

This is not a proposal, this is a notice to editors that one of the core Wikipedia policies requires they be removed.--Otterathome (talk) 18:03, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

In any case, it should be done. But I doubt there are clients that actually do not exist. If you find one, feel free to delete it.

mfg, OldDeath (talk) 12:21, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Otterathome, you did not have consensus for this the last time you tried it and you do not have it now. Within software comparison articles, we can even use (gasp!) primary sources such as the client's own website and documentation to add a citation for things such as release information, features, and functionality since we aren't having to deal with WP:N. See WP:SELFPUB. Feel free to add some references for those clients which you previously nominated for deletion, I'm sure you can find them without too much difficulty. --Tothwolf (talk) 12:49, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't need consensus to do this. Previously I was applying my own method to determine if clients were notable, where they should only be listed if they have an article. Removing uncited/original research material is allowed without permission. This is simply a warning to editors to give them time to add references.--Otterathome (talk) 17:22, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you do need consensus and consensus so far has not supported your continued attempt to remove information, which continues to be at odds with WP:PRESERVE and other policies/guidelines. If you feel something in particular is controversial and needs an inline citation, then by all means feel free to add one but please stop POV pushing to try to have clients removed from these tables. --Tothwolf (talk) 03:37, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

The convention is to remove entries from lists such as these that have no articles. This article is currently riddled with useless and spammy entries for the reader, many of which have no source and no useful information. The only objective way to decide if an entry should be added is whether it is notable, and therefore has an article. If not, any pet projects (and I see entries such as Anatomic, last released 4 years ago, and which never got past version 0.1, RC1) can be added, and the list becomes unmanageable for the reader. See WP:WTAF. Greenman (talk) 21:45, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

If there are no further comments, I'll start to remove the non-notables. Greenman (talk) 17:19, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Deluge and super-seeding/tracker

Deluge has been listed as supporting these two features for a while now, but the Deluge FAQ says it does not support super-seeding yet and will probably never have an embedded tracker. I also use Deluge very frequently myself and can see no evidence for either of these features being present in it. Hence I've changed the article to state that Deluge does not support either feature. Rhapsody Scarlet (talk) 23:24, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It used to be supported as a plug-in. Now no longer due to re-write. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 01:39, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Missing rows from comparison tables

There are rows missing from some of the comparison tables. This isn't the missing data with ? in the table cell.

How data below was obtained. I noticed General table (1.1) started has 54 rows. However a few of the tables after that had fewer than 54 rows. I looked for which row were in table 1.1 and weren't in the following 1.2 - 1.5 tables. This was easily located by merging all data into one table (in a spreadsheet) Then I also found a row for Snark in table 1.4 that wasn't in 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 or 1.5. It is the only one and is listed below.

Tables: 1.1 (Applications) 1.2 (OS Support), 1.3 (Interface & Programming), 1.4 (Features I) and 1.5 (Features II)

Possible reasons for missing data:

• No information available on Application/Client
• Application/client name just added to table 1.1 and not to others.
• Application/client no longer available or used
• meant to be deleted from all tables but some got missed
• someone did an undo someone not realising they were deleting more than they thought they were.
• Someone is collecting the date for the other tables and will update the other tables when they finished their data collection.
• any other reason you can think of

Perhaps tracking back to when these were added to the table(s) may shed light. From discussion section 4 (above, added by Surfer56 late Jan, early Feb), it is possible the additions suggested ( Miro, KGet, Xunlei are listed below) are recent and thus data is still being collected for update to all other tables.

In case anyone, myself included, feels like sorting it out here's a list:

• Only in Table 1.1. NOT in tables 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 and 1.5.
  • Global Downloader
  • Xunlei
• In Tables 1.1 & 1.2. NOT in tables 1.3, 1.4 and 1.5.
  • Wyzo
• In Tables 1.1, 1.2 & 1.3. NOT in tables 1.4 and 1.5.
  • KGet
  • Miro
  • MP3 Rocket

• In Table 1.4 only. NOT in tables 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.5
  • Snark

Important Note: No check has been done to ensure all the data in the cells of each table refer to the same/latest version of the application. It is possible that updates could have been done to one (or 2-4 of the tables but not all) without updates to other corresponding data for that application/client in other tables. Also possible that update is done on a particular data of a particular cell without check done on all other cells of that row in the table.

Despite this (probability of data not all in sync), I still think this is a VERY useful page. So don't take these comments of mine as a negative criticism of the page. Just putting the info here in case someone will find it useful for keeping the page up to date. Many thanks from me for those who put in the effort to building data in the tables of the article. Linnah (talk) 15:32, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

FOSS column

Any reason why FOSS column is in the top table? I know there are many supporters of FOSS but I don't think it's important enough to be in the first table.--Otterathome (talk) 17:34, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

The tables are ordered by category, not importance. License information doesn't fit into any of the other tables, so it goes in "general". Theymos (talk) 19:25, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Well it isn't really 'general' information, it should be under the Interface and programming section.--Otterathome (talk) 19:27, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

It kind of goes along with "cost", which clearly belongs in that section. Readers also expect it to be there, as most other software comparison articles put it in the top table. Theymos (talk) 19:59, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

The best way I've found to handle it is to combine it with the "Cost" column. Examples: {{free|Free software}} {{free|Freeware}} {{nonfree}}US$25
For what it's worth, I do support Otterathome's removal of the links in this edit [12] but not for the reasons he listed in the edit summary. It is acceptable however, to include a Website column (usually the rightmost column in the General table) and include a link to the "Official" site for each software program. The external links guideline supports this, specifically WP:ELYES, but linking to the website in the leftmost column where the name of the software is usually wikilinked can lead to reader confusion where someone expects to click through to an article about the software being discussed but are instead linked somewhere else via an external link. This really only works in a comparison article though, as a List of ... article with nothing more than a name and an external link would indeed fall under WP:NOTLINK. --Tothwolf (talk) 05:59, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

It belongs to the General Table (1.1) because that's where the information on Licensing (+ Cost) are. It should only be moved if the info on Licensing is moved. The Licence tells you where within the FOSS philosophy/model it stands. For more info on the philosophy/variants, start with FOSS page. Also the ability to examine the source code for FOSS clients, gives you further assurance it is Spyware, Adware, Malware-free (another column in table 1.1) IF users are careful where they get the client from. IF they aren't careful availability of source code means it can be altered, recompiled and redistributed as Malware. (Just adding my 2c worth late in the day.) Linnah (talk) 16:14, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Licensing info DEFINITELY belong to the first table. It's the single most important piece of info there is. 85.76.59.130 (talk) 14:42, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

IPv6 and µTP

Both, IPv6 and µTP support are features and belong into the Features I/II comparison table, not into the Interface and programming part of this comparison page and should be moved accordingly.

Also, The Features I/II comparison tables should be separated into 2 tables, one containing supported BT protocol features (peer exchange, encryption, UDP tracker,...) and one client-specific features (such as Magnet support, included Tracker, RSS, UPnP, remote control or automatic updates)

mfg, OldDeath (talk) 15:34, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Great suggestion! I propose the following fields for the first table (BT protocols): Peer exchange, Encryption, UDP tracker, LPD, DHT, Super-seeding, Web seeding, Tracker exchange, IPv6 and µTP. For table 2 (client specific): Magnet URI, Tracker, UPnP, NAT Port Mapping Protocol, NAT traversal, Proxy, Cache, Broadcatching (RSS), Prioritization, Selective downloads, SOCKS, Remote control via web, Search Engine, Auto updates and Notes.

I would also like to rename Tracker to Embedded tracker since it otherwise could be confused with something like support for connecting to trackers. Jonas.lundqvist (talk) 16:59, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree to your last point and I decided to do that change right now, especially as tracker support is no longer needed for a client to down- and upload torrents if it has DHT support.

mfg, OldDeath (talk) 22:07, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Tixati

Developed for the purpose of tracking its users for mining IP addresses to bring suits against, this company shouldn't be on this list. Furthermore, the documentation regarding this program is only from its website directly. Try and find third party information about this site, go ahead. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.215.47.255 (talk) 06:53, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm...??? There are some other sources, even if they are not that frequent... I'd like to see proof for what you said, before removing a potentially good client from this comparison table...

OldDeath (talk) 17:48, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

PS.: I moved this part of the discussion down, as new discussions should be at the bottom of the page by default...

webseeding

There are two incompatible webseed specifications: [13] (implemented by and developed for BitTornado) and [14] (implemented by and developed for GetRight). Distinction should be made in table. Client which supports BitTornado's webseed will not be able to download if in .torrent file GetRight's webseed source is given. And vice versa.
83.24.151.105☮ —Preceding undated comment added 16:07, 14 July 2010 (UTC).

Data Segregation

I just spent a painful (and fruitless) 30 minutes attempting to cross reference linux bittorrent clients that had a web interface and also supported DHT. Stumbled across this list via google and thought perhaps it would be helpful. My biggest issue with that, was the various distinct tables, meaning that there was no way to quickly sort by what I needed and break it down from there. Is there any reasoning beyond screen width that the tables are segregated the way they are? If so, perhaps it might make sense to add an all-encompassing table at the end of the list to make it easier to identify a potentially useful client from the rest of the chaff? HawkeVIPER (talk) 21:01, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

The tables are broken into 3 separate ones as most peoples PC screens wouldn't allow them to view the tables in a nice manner. I suggest that you do copy paste the tables into something like Excell and use sorting functions over there to filter out the information you need.

mfg, OldDeath - 13:00, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorting by latest stable

Would it be possible for the sorting by 'latest stable' coloumn to sort the last release date rather than the release number? This would give much more useful information (i.e. if development is still active). Most projects don't follow a comparable versioning scheme, especially if you look at 'commercial' and FLOSS software in the same table, as they seem to have different motivations in their versioning schemes. In general I've found that once the releases get past v1.0 the release number gives no useful information really. Just an idea. Chaos.squirrel (talk) 03:06, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Your idea is not bad, however, this would require one with bigger coding skills than most people have to edit the table template, so it's something that is not that easy to achieve.

mfg, OldDeath - 13:02, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Proxy support

In the Features II table, there is already a column for SOCKS support, so why adding a second column called Proxy to Features I? I think the Proxy column should be migrated into the SOCKS column.

mfg, OldDeath - 19:23, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Support of Cache Discovery Protocol

There is no information about support for the Cache Discovery Protocol. --79.168.10.241 (talk) 17:24, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

freedownloadmanager is not open source

The current version 3.0.852 does not have source code posted at sourceforge. The last version for which they posted source code was 3.0.848 from 2009. I leave it to someone else to modify the table to reflect this. I note that their website nevertheless still claims it is GPL. peter (talk) 20:32, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

remove the FOSS column for the first table

We already have a license column which gives us the same information and more. Voomoo (talk) 05:16, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Disagree, as it allows the table to sorted, which is useful. Many other articles have a separate table for FOSS applications, but this is a better way of doing it. Greenman (talk) 10:38, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

You could sort based on license too. Some issues with the FOSS column particularly is that a) its not a binary yes/no decision - there are degrees of fossdem b) not everyone considers all the products on the table to be FOSS. c) its more to maintain if products change. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Voomoo (talk • contribs) 19:09, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, sorting by the license column is possible - however very unhandy because it is an alphabetical sort and will not regroup certain types of licenses, which the FOSS column does. It is true that being FOSS is not a binary decision, however, all FOSS licenses share some central specific elements, and it's these elements that are most important to those who choose rather a FOSS software than a different software product. As for the bigger amount of maintenance work: Licenses change only rarely in a very drastic way. FOSS code will forever stay FOSS, as that is part of the definition of such a license. So in reality, there should be no major maintenance problem when there is the once-in-a-millenia event that a software has actually a really major license change that will change the FOSS status of a software. And even if this were an event to happen once per month on that page, it's still only 2 or 3 additional characters to be changed while updating the license column - which is an amount of work nobody should have a problem with.

mfg, OldDeath - 18:34, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Put sortable tables

Hi, for usability, please transform tables into sortable.... Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.151.147.29 (talk) 20:18, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

They are... Greenman (talk) 20:49, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, they are already sortable. Just lick on the little sorting icon on the top of each column: This is how the icon looks.

mfg, OldDeath - 17:11, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

BitThief

I want to propose some changes to the information on the BitThief client. The purpose of Wikipedia is present the facts, not opinions. Of course it's anybody's right to have opinions about facts, and in this case you probably have a good reason for having them. :) However, don't let them influence the way you present facts on wikipedia, as they should be written down in a neutral way. That's why I'd like to propose the following three changes to the information on the BitThief client.

1. Under the "General" heading, the BitThief client is called Spyware. Firstly, the predicate "Spyware" (check your dictionary) means that the client tries to hide its activities of cataloguing user actions. This might have been the case in the past, but the software's official homepage does currently (for already a couple of years!) state exactly what information is being collected. The homepage also explicitly states that the reason for this information collection is just for scientific reasons (BitThief has been developed by the Zürich University). Secondly, the website explicitly states that the information that is being collected does only contain hashes of download times and that it's impossible to determine what's being downloaded. In the third place, the word "Spyware" implicitly discourages downloading or using the BitThief client. I can imagine you personally want to discourage the use of BitThief, but wikipedia is simply not the place to do this, except perhaps when it's universally clear that using BitThief is harmful to the user.
2. The "Spyware" predicate (of which I hope it can be changed in something different, more factual and neutral) contains note 13, which in turn references to a third party website. I suppose this reference dates from long ago, maybe before those lads in Zürich added the information collection note on their website. It would now be more accurate to refer to the homepage of BitThief itself, instead to the third party website. The homepage states exactly what is the case and what isn't, concerning the information collection of BitThief.
3. Under the "Features II" heading, the statement is made that BitThief is designed to abuse the bittorrent protocol. Although you can argue that BitThief is designed to utilise a weakness in the bittorrent protocol (doesn't that sound a lot more neutral and encyclopedia?), I hope you guys agree with me that the "abuse" verb sounds negative. Let's again stick to the facts. I therefore propose to remove the sentence "Designed to abuse the BitTorrent protocol." It seems fair and square to me to mention that BitThief has the ability (which can be turned off, as a matter of fact) to disable data uploading. If desired, also a note can be added that "BitThief is designed to utilise a weakness in the bittorrent protocol" or something like that. Please prevent that your personal opinion shows through. Oh, and the BitThief homepage can be used as a reference for this one too.

--Deresser (talk) 10:47, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

As a random user looking for information on the different torrent clients, I can agree with your suggested change to "Features II". The spyware term, while not the best, accurately describes the behavior. The 3rd party link has an update with the new information being listed on the developer's website which occurred after the publishing of the post. Spyware isn't necessarily bad, FireFox and IE also have functions which communicate with developers about usage and problems. In an effort to make the distinction clear, I could justify an addendum to the cell that states the developer collects usage and download time data, but the box should still be red and still contain the word 'No'. I think perhaps you are confusing malware and spyware. Malware hides the transfer or actively lies about it, spyware is the transfer. (talk) 08:40, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

About the word "spyware", check wiktionary: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/spyware, and I suggest to check the definition of the word "surreptitiously" after you've read that: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/surreptitious. Deresser (talk) 14:14, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

As for the term "spyware", I think everything that reports possible sensitive data to a third party and which does not allow to disable this reporting of data can count as spyware. And reporting the BTIH hashes of the user's downloads is especially to be criticized, as this can be a major privacy risk.

Also, I think using the word "abuse" rather than only something like "utilise a weakness" is correct, as utilising a weakness does not have the connotation of doing something wrong or bad. (Which is what people who don't upload to a swarm they're downloading from are doing, as they do harm everyone else by diminishing the available bandwidth for those other users without giving something back in return.)

mfg, OldDeath - 19:04, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Don't understand me wrong, I'm nog trying to be rude. But it is exactly how you state it: As for the term "spyware", you think it can count as spyware. But wikipedia isn't for what individuals think, is it? Wikipedia is to present the facts. The neutral facts. And isn't wiktionary kinda neutral? So how about using that definition of spyware instead of how individuals feel about it.

Same counts for the last statement you make. It's just an opinion.

Mfg, Deresser (talk) 20:25, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

The new version 0.4 (January the 10th 2011) gives the user the possibility to turn off the uploading of statistics. I strongly suggest to remove the Spyware predicate and update the article reflecting version 0.4. Deresser (talk) 11:03, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, the point about spyware might just be an opinion, but if you don't define spyware as something spying on a user by reporting possibly (very) sensitive information to an untrusted third party, how else can you define it?

As for my second statement about not uploading to a swarm if you're downloading from it: It is bad for all users of this swarm if you're diminishing the available bandwidth for them without giving something back. That's not a question of definition, that's a fact. So when describing the "feature" of not uploading, this needs to be taken into account and to be reflected in the article. Maybe the word "exploit" could be used rather than "abuse", as it is more neutral and also states what has been said before.

However I do support your request from the 8 February - if you can prove this statement (which shouldn't be very hard as there must be a change log for the client of some kind).

mfg, OldDeath - 13:56, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Okay, you convinced me about that Features II part. But about Spyware... I don't know. Is the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich an untrusted third party? We could argue about that. I couldn't find a changelog on their website, by the way. However, the online documentation has been updated to reflect the new situation (version 0.4). Check the "Upload Statistics" sentence under the "Configuration" heading: http://bitthief.ethz.ch/documentation.php. Now the reporting of usage statistics can be turned off. Surely that frees BitThief of its Spyware status?

Deresser (talk) 18:50, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I think we have consensus then. :) The information you linked to certainly clears the client of spyware issues in my eyes, so we can remove the spyware tag (including a reference stating you can turn it off and it does not (?) transmit personal data. [However I still think that BTIH hashes of torrents downloaded do count as personal data, but that is probably only an opinion and therefore irrelevant in this discussion.] ) I will change the abuse statement myself.

mfg, OldDeath - 13:42, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Libraries - QBitTorrent

AFAIK, this class is part of the Qt toolkit and probably should be included in the official comparison on this list...

mfg, OldDeath - 18:43, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Information that is not available

I think, it would be a good thing if we supposed all information that is not available as "no"s, which means that all {{?}}s should be replaced by {{no}}s. While doing this, we should try to contact all clients that are on the list and that have ?s, so that their respective coders/developers have a possibility to react. (Maybe we should draft a default email to send to them below this post?)

I do propose this as there are many clients on this page we will never have detailed information about, as they are poorly documented etc. and with as many question marks in the table as we have now, it is simply a mess to read.

mfg, OldDeath - 20:17, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

If none's watching this talk page/article, none should have a problem if I act as I proposed a week ago... right?

mfg, OldDeath - 20:14, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

No, it's better to have incomplete information (question marks) rather than inaccurate information (no's). Greenman (talk) 02:46, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd have to agree with this.Pasado (talk) 02:04, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

UTorrent

Utorrent now comes with the "UTorrent bar". This should be changed. 99.64.139.25 (talk) 22:56, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

x64bit Client column/section

After reading a torrentfreak article about BitComet 1.27, which I believe is the first major 64bit torrent client, I thought I'd come here and see if there are any others listed, but I see no mention of this designation.

http://torrentfreak.com/bitcomet-goes-64-bit-with-new-release-110424/

I also see that version 1.27 isn't listed as the latest B/C version, but since I'm not experienced at editing wiki pages, I'll leave that change to someone who is.

Also since I don't feel confident in making a change as minor as that, I definitely don't want to redesign the columns, nor do the research to show if each client offers an x64 version, but it really should be added. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.114.200.87 (talk) 06:15, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Most clients have at least some public bata release available as x64 build, so I don't think that is really important information...

BTW, I've updated the BitComet version template.

mfg, OldDeath - 14:15, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Gibberish?

The first sentence under "Operating system support" (the line before the table) - I simply don't understand what it's trying to say. There must be some words missing. 85.228.184.214 (talk) 17:31, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

KGet, ABC_OKC and other BT-clients

What about adding: http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/f-software-23/t-abc-yet-another-bittorrent-client-reincarnation-389496

http://www.moopolice.de/

KGet [It is included.]

uTorrent Mac ? [It is included.]

FrostWire [THIS STILL NEEDS INCLUDING]

Miro [It is included.]

Retriever [Needs including.]

leechcraft [Needs including.]

Download managers with bittorrent support: FreeDownloadManager, GetRight 6, NetTransport

Libtorrent-based clients: http://www.rasterbar.com/products/libtorrent/projects.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libtorrent_(Rasterbar)#Applications

Chinese bittorrent clients: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuotu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xunlei

Surfer56 (talk)

What about Tixati? It's constantly updated, has DHT support, seems to be a quality product. It's actually quite surprising that it has no article on Wikipedia - 78.2.97.9 (talk) 02:44, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Timespan of setting the "no longer in development" marking of a BT-client

What is the timespan of Timespan of setting the "no longer in development" marking of a BT-client? After 12 months, after 24 months?

IMHO I would set all the clients who aren't updated in 12 months to purple RoestVrijStaal (talk) 15:24, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Propose: Wyzo -> here 1. lack of assertion of notability after years (only 1 weak indi RS) 2. incoherent - co/products advert requires fundamental rewrite 3. controversy on talk page over licencing and other issues — Preceding unsigned comment added by Widefox (talk • contribs) 18:29, 13 May 2012‎

I'd rather think about deleting Wyzo altogether. Looks like it's abandoned, has marginal user base and in proprietary as well. If all that is the case, there's little point of even mentioning it. — Vano 06:50, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Please add Tixati. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.16.75.206 (talk) 18:48, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

somebody please add MobTorrent

A free open source java client that runs on basic phones and probably the only one of it's kind. Released by students of Budapest University.

http://amorg.aut.bme.hu/projects/mobtorrent/

http://mywave525.blogspot.in/2011/02/mobtorrent-bittorrent-client.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.200.121.240 (talk) 04:22, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

The page has lost important information

On March 28 a very large edit was made which has removed some important information from the page:

• There is no distinction between different licenses anymore, there is only "free software" and "proprietary software".
• The information about the latest release versions and release dates has been replaced with a column "Maintained: Yes/No".

I would suggest adding this information back in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.193.226.206 (talk) 07:39, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

And what about BitTorrent servers?

BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer protocol, and thus effectively has neither servers nor clients.

In the traditional P2P systems, such as SMTP-based e-mail relay networks, the nodes participating in the exchange, are called agents (e. g., mail transfer agent, not mail server.) While I see that the BitTorrent implementations are most commonly called clients nowadays, may it make sense for Wikipedia to use a more correct term for this concept? (Or at least mention that BitTorrent client is essentially a misnomer.)

TIA.

Ivan Shmakov (talk) 12:55, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

As there were no objections, and following the be bold principle, I've now implemented the change, saying (in the preface) that the client part of the term is essentially a misnomer.

(Hopefully, someone could improve the wording a bit.)

Ivan Shmakov (talk) 15:56, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

What do you think about renaming the article to Comparison of BitTorrent file-sharing software? – Ringbang (talk) 06:54, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

• They are called "clients" ubiquitously so the article's name is reasonable (WP:NAME#Deciding on an article title). And that has a good reason since there are trackers too which are clearly "servers". I see no need to change anything. — Vano 07:10, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree that we cannot change the title, for the reason noted. However, trackers are not essential to BitTorrent protocol. Why, BitTorrent relies on trackers even less than e-mail relies on DNS. Still, we rely on Mail Transfer Agents for mail delivery. (OTOH, “A mail server is a computer that serves as an electronic post office for email.” The “final point” in the delivery path, so to say.)

Also, could you please clarify what you've meant with “companion web sites”, and how exactly are they used by the BitTorrent protocol?

Ivan Shmakov (talk) 16:59, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

These are the web sites you search torrents at and download .torrent files from. I think you will agree that to a torrent user, they are an essential and integral part of the BitTorrent system. And they clearly are "servers". — Vano 17:14, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

(Or, alternatively, one searches for, and copies, magent: scheme URI's off such sites. Or they could be Metalink files instead. The .torrent files aren't the only mean to an end.)

Still, such sites are nothing more than search engines. They have roughly the same relevance to the protocol per se as Web search engines have to HTTP. Moreover, I guess that a majority of BitTorrent agents do not interface such sites at all — one uses a Web browser for that.

Hence, while a mention of such sites and services is warranted on the BitTorrent page, I don't see how is it relevant here.

And I stand on that the availability of trackers (which are an option, not a strict requirement of the protocol, thanks to BEP 5; though such an option may be the only one implemented in some BitTorrent agents) doesn't magically turn a P2P protocol into a client-server one.

Both points combined, I'd rather see the “quite reasonable” passage dropped altogether. TIA.

Ivan Shmakov (talk) 17:38, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

..."sorry for the long letter, I didn't have time to compose a short one" (c) Blaise Pascal.
Removed it. Satisfied? Think of a better phrasing if you can. As I said, it doesn't matter whether peers interact with the sites or not or what they really do under the hood. They are called "clients" for short by users because from a user's point of view, they are much more like clients than servers and are drastically different from other entities that are clearly servers. — Vano 18:45, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is meant not only for BitTorrent users, but also for implementors, protocol designers, as well as those who don't care at all. So, it has to describe things for what they are, and not how they “look” from a certain POV.

IOW, I like the current revision of the page more. Thanks.

Ivan Shmakov (talk) 19:10, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I've always thought that in bittorrent, rather than client and server programs, there are clients and trackers. So something like transmission is a client, most users run clients, and the folks who run trackers are the equivalent of server operators. Search engines that index trackers are in the realm of "related" but don't count as torrent software. 67.119.3.105 (talk) 21:33, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Sequential downloading

Any more warring before we reach consensus here, and I'll request protection and/or sanctions.
I asked at the WikiProject computing if there is any established practice on deciding what features to compare on. I doubt there are any though since my search revealed nothing.
From what I can see now, the feature is covered as major by vendors and is widely discussed. So I see no reason why it shouldn't be present. And since this feature is so controversial, it doesn't in any way mean that a {{yes}} in this column characterises a software by its good side. — Vano 01:17, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Sequential downloading is very bad for whole Bittorrent protocol as it defeats the purpose and benefits of the torrent distribution mechanisms. BitTorrent clients use a "rarest first" piece picking system to maximizes speed and to make sure the swarm always stays healthy, and sequential downloading goes against that. Very detailed information about it is here (Sequential downloading is bad - VuzeWiki).More info 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Also don't forget that that is most rejected feature in almost every Bittorrent client, because it's one of the most self-destructive features any torrent client can ever implement. P.S. Sequential downloading is already on wiki, it's just 'hidden' behind "Prioritization" and "Selective downloads". We no need dupes here, especially another Bitvomit features promoting hit & run leechers... 193.107.213.142 (talk) 20:51, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

• It doesn't matter a gram if this is good or bad a feature. It only matters if sources present it as major enough to be comparing on. Your statement that it's not a separate feature but rather a variation of a more general prioritization feature is valid in this regard. P.S. i didn't get any answer at the project's forum - this probably means there are no regulations on comparison list contents, so general principles of notability and relative weight apply. — Vano 04:34, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
  • It matters greatly if it's good or bad. I don't see in comparison list bad features like spoofing IDs, cheating or hacking download and upload ratio or any others leechers features. What's more only a one Bittorrent client (qBittorrent) have this feature (Sequential downloading aka "Download in order") implanted, so I see no reason why it should be added here and also this in some way will be promoting hit & run leechers by just simply informing them about this feature. 193.107.213.142 (talk) 16:51, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I share Vano's point of view and I disagree that Sequential dowloading = Prioritization and Selective downloads. Therefore it should have its own column. Petr Matas (talk) 17:18, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Or, to reflect the feature's controversy and rareness, we could mention sequential downloading (if present) in the Notes column. — Petr Matas 02:31, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Rareness? I already showed above that it's considered major and is widely available. To add evidence, 3 of 4 of the feature lists in the section below have it (uTorrent calls it "streaming mode" and BitComet - "preview mode"). — Vano 21:23, 17 April 2013 (UTC)